Wedding Dress For Sale
by Ergott
Summary: At 15 she hadn't thought anything of it. At 17 she thought that it was just bad luck. At 20 she wondered if maybe it was her. At 22 she thought that she was cursed. At 24 Sarah Williams vanished. [Counterpoint now up.] JS.
1. Point

**Wedding Dress for Sale.**

At 15 she hadn't thought anything of it.

When they had first started dating, Michael had been painfully shy but she had helped open him up. So, it really hadn't been all that surprising when he left for girls that he had been too afraid to talk to before.

* * *

At 17 she had thought that perhaps it was just bad luck.

None of her relationships up to that point had lasted very long, but Daren had seemed different. He had been understanding, supportive even, of her love for fantasy. They had completed each other so well that she had felt more alive with him than any boy she had previously known. In their six months together he had given her such high hopes.

Daren broke off their relationship on Valentines Day, claiming that he felt the insatiable need to join the military.

* * *

At 20 she began to wonder if maybe it was her.

She had met Josh in the library while studying mythology, and they had hit it off right away. They had been real sweet on each other, acting like grade school crushes: holding hands and kissing when no one was looking. She had been delighted to find out that he was a History major; finally, someone she could talk to about legends and folklore without getting strange looks!

They had been going steady for about a year before he began to avoid her. When she finally managed to corner him and ask what was wrong, all he said was that they _really_ couldn't be together anymore.

* * *

At 22 she was beginning to think she was cursed.

David, sweet-lovely-caring David, had proposed. She couldn't have been happier. Their relationship wasn't perfect, but they had never had a no-hold-barred argument, and, to be honest, he was the first man who hadn't run screaming at the sight of her after a year.

The wedding was to be a small affair, family and close friends only. She had wanted to have it in October, but David had flat-out refused, saying that it would be bad luck to have it so close to Halloween. They eventually settled on a date in September instead, which was close enough to autumn to make her happy and far enough from The Feast of the Dead to relax him.

For a while everything was perfect, but as the wedding drew closer David began to loose sleep and was becoming increasingly twitchy in her presence. She had assumed it was only passing nerves, but…

Three days before the big event she got a call from him saying that they had to call the whole thing off because he was on his way to Tibet in order to study the Buddhist Monks.

* * *

At 23 she knew something was wrong.

Michael, Daren, Josh, and David had all made the local gossip circles for being committed to the city psychiatric ward.

* * *

At 24 Sarah Williams vanished. The only thing left in her apartment was a white dress and a note.

'_Wedding dress for sale. Size 6; never worn.'_

* * *

A/N: There is a counterpoint on its way, but after that I'm not sure. This could remain as a short two part story, or I could continue it. Tell me what you think.

The note at the end was actually a classifieds ad that someone mentioned in class the other day. It just sort of got me thinking.

Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth.


	2. Counterpoint

**Wedding Dress For Sale**

Counterpoint.

With Michael he had been amused.

The boy was no more than a mouse, stuttering and blushing when a woman approached him. There was no possible way that he could handle someone like Sarah, whose very being radiated a fiery intensity; she would overwhelm him before long. So he had been lenient, waiting for nature to take its' course. The boy gained a little courage and moved on to others that he would be better suited to handle.

He hadn't had to lift a finger to draw the two apart.

* * *

With Daren he had been jadedly tolerant.

At first the relationship had been no deeper than the one Sarah had shared with her previous suitor. It was puppy love, more infatuation than affection, and on some level he was willing to accept that. She was bored and he could hardly fault her for looking for company when he himself was not present; she was, after all, only human and needed companionship to fill the short hours of her life.

After a month or so they began to get slightly physical, but he trusted Sarah's judgment. Or, at least, that's what he told himself, but the thought never seemed to bring comfort. It wasn't her that he didn't have faith in, it was the boy. Daren was an X factor in the whole equation; men were impulsive and hormonal, and _never_ to be trusted around young women (at least, not if you expected them to come out of the relationship with their virtue intact). He had tried telling himself to be patient, that something would eventually happen and Sarah would dismiss her whelp.

He couldn't do it. There was something masochistic about watching some inexperienced lad paw up his girl for five months. He had never denied himself anything before and he'd be damned if he started now.

On an instinctual level he knew that Valentine's Day had probably not been a good choice, but he refused to add anymore pain to what Sarah was bound to feel by having her suffer through any unexpected confessions of love right before he drove her little toy away. He took the subtle approach for this boy, deciding to plant ideas into his mind rather than outright scaring the lad off. The military hadn't been his first suggestion but it was the one that Daren latched on to, and it did serve the purpose of removing him from the girl.

* * *

With Josh he had been irritated.

The boy excited her intellectually and they had quickly formed a bond. Though their relationship was only a step above being platonic, he was still greatly bothered. There was true affection between them, and that was not something he could allow to deepen.

But Josh proved to be stubborn. Planted suggestions seemed to have no effect on him, if anything he only grew closer to Sarah during that period. He had been at something of a loss for a while; it seemed ridiculous that he, a Fae King, would have to stoop so low as to use his powers with the intent of frightening one single mortal. It was nearly embarrassing, but he could not intervene physically unless Sarah called him; his access to her world was nigh unlimited, but she had managed to shut her life out from all but visits in his owl form. Somehow he doubted that getting attacked by an irritated bird would dissuade the lad from courting Sarah. So magic intervention it was.

He started off the nightmares innocently enough. Once every couple of days Josh would have a dream about a barren future, a happy home ripped apart because his lady fair had too many secrets. It wasn't that far from the truth, their relationship would not be able to survive the strain of Sarah keeping something like the Labyrinth a secret; the boy would never understand why she acted the way she did and he would eventually come to resent her mind of fantasy. But Josh preserved and so, measures had to be stepped up a bit.

He began alternating between two different dreams. The first was what had transpired in the Crystal Ballroom. While he was loathe to share such a private moment in his own life, it served the purpose of putting doubt in the boy's mind; would he be able to trust Sarah if a rival presented himself? The other dream was nothing more than the King telling Josh to back off. He snapped and snarled and made sure the boy knew that he could cause him serious injury. Sarah was off limits, pursuing a relationship with her would be fruitless and nothing less than a disaster if the Fae's ire was invoked.

Josh got that message loud and clear; he began avoiding Sarah like the plague. It was only a matter of time before their relationship laid in tatters from neglect.

* * *

With David he had been enraged.

The simple-minded fool was not so easily drawn away as the others had been. She had accepted his proposal, had agreed to marry that two-face son of a gutter whore!

The months leading up to the wedding were nearly painful. He had tried the nightmare approach again, raging at the man through his dreams. But David, despite his increasingly nervous behavior, didn't distance himself from Sarah. Instead, he had taken precautions, making sure their wedding was not near All Hallows Eve, when the veils separating their worlds were the thinnest and quite possibly the only time he would have been able to physically intrude in Sarah's life without her expressed permission.

He had reached the end of his rope. It was only days before the wedding and he still hadn't managed to drive a wedge between them. That was the first night since his 520th birthday that he got rip-roaring drunk. The fact that his woman was getting married to someone who wasn't him and the only thing he could do was lift a bottle in impotent rage, simply made him drink harder. It was in the depths of his alcoholic haze that he decided he no longer gave a damn about any of the rules. He was going to destroy the mortal that was trying to claim Sarah.

It would have been interesting to extricate the man's heart from his chest, but the liquor had prevented that thought from fully forming. Instead he had dragged David to the Labyrinth in a blaze of fiery magic. For thirteen hours he tormented the man, endlessly looping the paths into one another, sending some of the most vicious creatures in his kingdom to impede the mortal's steps, forcing him into one oubliette after another, creating all manner of visions of Sarah that would lead him down the wrong corridors or simply torment him by saying hateful things. When the thirteen hours drew to a close the King appeared before him, looking wild-eyed and deadly. He gripped the man by his throat and simply stated, "_You can't have her_," before sending the wretch back to his own home.

When he awoke the next morning, not even the blinding hangover that greeted him could dampen his joy at the news that David had elected to go _very_ far away.

* * *

For the year after that, he eased his lingering anger by tormenting all four of them. They would never look at his Sarah again.

* * *

He waited another year before he was finally extended an invitation back into her life. It probably hadn't been intentional but he was not one to frown upon good fortune.

Of course, the dress would have to go; even in a tolerant mood he would not be able to bear the sight of it, a constant reminder that he had almost lost her to another. Besides, she would have another one to wear, prettier and more elaborate. Their wedding would, quite literally, be something out of a fairytale.

* * *

A/N: I made a promise that I was unable to keep; I'm sorry this piece took so long to get up. I'm not sure if I should continue this or not. If I do, it would be a chaptered sequel that starts somewhere during the last two years and spans out to after this story. Anyway, tell me what you thought.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that came from the movie Labyrinth.


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